As we approach 41 years of pain since the Turkish invasion of 1974, with negotiations interrupted due to Turkey’s illegal incursions into Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone, with Barbaros and Turkish warships, to make seismic surveys in areas where hydrocarbon reserves have been discovered, there seems little basis for optimism in Cyprus.

Turkey is a candidate country of the European Union, so must surely be compelled to adhere to the basic principles and rules of the European Union.

However, Turkey instead continues its steps to “upgrade” the unrecognised state in the occupied area of a full-member of the EU, stationing over 40,000 troops and settling over 100,000 Turkish mainlanders there in a tactic aimed at making partition inevitable.

Conversely, the Republic of Cyprus does what it can for all Cypriots, providing millions of euros from its budget on the pensions, health care and social welfare to a growing number of Turkish Cypriots. This is a recent demonstration of a long-standing willingness of the Greek Cypriots to compromise and accommodate in its pursuit of a settlement. The contrast with Turkey could not be more stark.

Our Annual General Meeting has resolved to formally request, on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Cypriots in the UK, to ensure that the European Union does not waver from the principles which should guide its actions in relation to Cyprus. We wish to remind you that after nearly 41 years:

Thank the European Parliament for the resolution, adopted by the plenary of the European Parliament, on the relocation of remains of missing persons from mass graves in the northern Turkish occupied areas of the Republic of Cyprus.

Cyprus, a full member of the European Union, remains divided by force and occupied by Turkish troops (a candidate country of the EU).

Military occupation continues to breach numerous UN Security Council resolutions, judgements of the European Court of Human Rights and international law.

Turkish intransigence blights the prospects of a solution.

The island’s cultural and religious heritage in the occupied areas is being actively desecrated and defiled.

Turkish Cypriots are an isolated minority in their own country as a result of an orchestrated influx of Turkish mainlanders.

More than 200,000 people are still refugees, unable to return to the homes and properties in the occupied area.

The occupied historic town of Famagusta stands empty, held prisoner by the Turkish army which refuses to allow its legal inhabitants to return, a tragic symbol of Turkey’s intransigence.

Turkey still acts with impunity, with disrespectful and regionally destabilising actions such as its incursions into the Republic of Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The Greek Cypriot Brotherhood calls on you to act in the interest of justice by redoubling the efforts of the European Commission to deliver a free, united, independent Cyprus, a state with a single sovereignty, a single citizenship and a single international personality, where the human rights of all Cypriots will are respected and protected.